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This article was published on October 11, 2013

Hear Steve Jobs convincingly dismiss tablets 10 years ago


Hear Steve Jobs convincingly dismiss tablets 10 years ago

It has only been three years since Apple introduced the iPad, and it has been a tremendous success ever since. That makes it all the more interesting to hear Steve Jobs convincingly dismiss tablets, at the first All Things Digital conference in 2003, ten years ago, to Walt Mossberg.

We’ve skipped it forward for you to mid-7 minute mark for the tablet bit.

“It turns out people want keyboards”… “We look at the tablet and we think it’s gonna fail”… Now, 2003 was a different era to 2010, but it’s interesting to see how our perceptions of what makes sense in terms of technology change over time. That said, Mossberg and Jobs agree that the tablet is a better reading device than anything with a clamshell format, but Jobs doesn’t think the market for a ‘third computer’ is big enough. How times changed.

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